Summary

It didn’t take long for the tide to turn in the Libyan civil war.

In May 2019, it appeared as though victory was imminent for General Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA), whom were besieging the Libyan capital of Tripoli after taking control of large swathes of the country, including lucrative oil fields in the east. The bloody siege would drag on for months, with some surrounding villages changing hands several times. Then the scale tilted in favor of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) in December, when Turkey signed a variety of agreements pledging security assistance. The help materialized almost immediately, and by January 2020, the first Turkish troops were arriving in Libya.

Fast-forward to the present and the once-dominant LNA has been driven from the northwest entirely, and is now holding the line in Sirte – the gateway to the ‘oil crescent’ that both sides covet. And with rumors that the Egyptian government is considering taking a more active role in the conflict, the question begs answering: Is the Libyan civil war nearing its end, or is it just getting started?